


Five Times Bureaucratic Red Tape Frustrated Jupiter Jones Beyond Belief…

by hiddencait



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Gen, Paperwork, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>…And the One Time Things Ran Surprisingly Smoothly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bureaucratic Red Tape Frustrated Jupiter Jones Beyond Belief…

**Author's Note:**

  * For [templemarker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/gifts).



> I love this stupid wonderful film SO SO MUCH. I was thrilled to see it on Templemarker's request. I got pretty much free range on this, but couldn't decide on a single plot. So I did several. Hope you enjoy Templemarker!
> 
> As always much love to [name redacted] for betaness. Any errors left over are from me going back in and fiddling.

**Five Times Bureaucratic Red Tape Frustrated Jupiter Jones Beyond Belief…**

_Establishing Her Identity_

Lines, lines, and more lines. Jupiter had made it to another galaxy, and she was going to die standing in yet another damned line before she got to see any more of it. They were at the fifth different desk substation whatever the department was – or no it was the sixth – or fifth maybe? Jupiter had stopped counting after the third smarmy admin directed them “down three floors and right at the fourth intersection” or something along those lines.

Fifth or sixth, it was about the fourth line too many, and if they didn’t get out of here soon, Jupiter wasn’t going to die; she was going to kill someone. She wasn’t sure who. Really it could be anyone, absolutely anyone at this point. Though it was mostly likely going to be the next person to tell them “you’re in the wrong department” without giving any kind of clear indication what the right department actually was.

Even the android she’d apparently been assigned, Advocate Bob, looked like he was starting to sweat. Could androids sweat? She almost wanted to ask, but guessed it might be rude to discuss artificial bodily functions.

Jupiter was just about to ask if Caine thought the line might move faster if he drew his weapon, but Advocate Bob finally dared to offer a bribe. It got the job done, thank all that was holy.

Jupiter just wished he’d thought to do it sooner.

_The DMV_

It was a waste of time. She’d known it was a waste of time, but Jupiter still went, anyway. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried for a driver’s license; hell, it wasn’t even the first time she’d tried for the most basic ID card. There was a list of approved identity documents a mile long.

Jupiter didn’t have any of them.

She could get a fake ID from half a dozen of her uncle’s contacts or from her jack-off cousin’s friends. That wasn’t the point. Jupiter could get Caine to make her one himself, and it would likely be far better quality than any of the Earth channels could get her. That wasn’t the point, either.

The point was… Jupiter wasn’t even sure what the point was, except that finally getting her real-legal-and-not-at-all-fake license would have been something, _anything_ , to prove that she was ‘Jupiter Jones.’ Just the girl she’d always been on Earth. Someone who existed only as herself, and not as a shadow of a long dead Entitled.

She played dumb when the person directing people into line asked how they could help her, moving around them to ‘look’ for a friend she’d supposedly been waiting for.

Jupiter will never admit that later she cried angry, frustrated tears in the parking lot.

 

_Writing of the Will_

“But they’re _tersies._ ” The Adjudicator on the other side of the desk all but dripped scorn at the word, and Jupiter had to remind herself that reaching over and slapping the android upside its artificial head probably wouldn’t get the job done any faster.

“I’m aware of that. They are, after all, my family. I’m pretty sure I know where they’re from.” She smiled the same smile she used back home when a housecleaning client came in with muddy shoes and immediately complained about the imaginary dust on an end table. Caine had been known to cringe away from that particular smile. The Adjudicator, unfortunately, did not seem to have the same self-preservation instincts… programming… whatever.

“Well, then you should already be aware that they’d be hardly suitable to stand as your heirs in this matter.” The Adjudicator smiled and folded her hands as if ‘that was that.’ Jupiter was sure the smile on the android’s face was intended to be considerate, or at least polite and professional, but all she saw in it was condescension.

“Well, _you_ should be aware that it’s my fortune, my planet, and my will. So if I say they’re suitable, _they are._ ”

“Well-”

“No! No ‘well.’ No ‘but.’ This is what’s happening. Type up the damn form already!” Caine laid a discrete hand against Jupiter’s shoulder, and she managed, just barely, to keep herself from vaulting over the desk to repeat her request a bit more forcefully.

The android let out a sigh that was this time clearly designed right on the money of “long-suffering” and reached for the form in question, and the several others that apparently went with the original. “You’ll need to complete these Sections 12EW-R2 through 42A-U1. Once you’re done, they’ll need to be filed with the Office of Entitled Inheritance Office 127.34.”

“Wait… So you aren’t even the person I file wills with?!”

“I just provide the paperwork, your majesty.” With that, the Adjudicator’s chair spun around and a panel lower from the ceiling to the desk, sealing off the rest of the room. Apparently, they’d been dismissed.

“I really hate when people call me that,” Jupiter muttered, gathering up the stack of paperwork and wondering where exactly she was going to find said Office 127.34.

           

_Hiring an On-Planet Assistant_

And to think, Jupiter had thought a green card was hard to get. It had been bad enough just getting applicants to respond to her job posting for an Entitled’s on-planet executive assistant: easily half the applicants had laughed in her face during the interviews, and the other half had gotten quietly terrified at the prospect. Which, really, it was _clearly_ stated in the ad just which planet Jupiter lived on – didn’t people read all the details on a job ad anymore?

Apparently not. Apparently, most people just expected her to build or buy an assistant. Which, no offense to her two favorite splices, was just not an option that sat well with her. She’d had to swallow back bile on more than one occasion at the “splice market” she’d been sent to; Jupiter had finally left the place empty handed and even more determined to actually hire someone for the position.

It had been pure luck that she’d stumbled on to Melody Luscinia when she had. Well, luck and the help of Kiza Apini. Apparently the songbird splice was a sort of a friend of a friend of a pen-pal of Kiza’s or something; Jupiter had gotten a bit lost trying to follow the conversation with her young friend as Kiza was far more energetic post Recode and had a new tendency to babble. In any case, Kiza had mentioned the songbird had been released from service, something to do with the Entitled that owned her contract redecorating of all shitty reasons to fire someone, and managed to put Jupiter in contact with her. To say it had worked out great was a massive understatement. Melody had little of the ‘awe of Entitled’ Jupiter had come up against with some of the other applicants, not surprising considering her recent employment history, and better yet, Melody was every bit as organized and familiar with basic administrative duties as Jupiter was unfamiliar with them. Add in the songbird’s frankly glorious voice and tendency to sing softly under her voice and her longing to settle down on a nice quiet planet somewhere, and she was basically perfect for the job of Jupiter’s executive assistant.

Now if they could just get the damn hiring process finished up! Getting the contract drafted and signed by both Jupiter and Melody had been easy enough, though there had been some minor kerfuffle when Melody’s previous employer/owner had decided they didn’t want Melody working at all if it wasn’t with them. Jupiter had made it very clear just what she thought of that kind of bullshit, and the offending party had backed off quick-like in the face of the Abrasax heir’s ire. That or at the sight of Caine looming over her shoulder and armed to his literal teeth. Jupiter didn’t much care which. The sight of Caine looming was one of her favorites, after all.

But now, drat it all, now the location of the job posting was apparently putting up roadblocks due to Earth’s “underdeveloped state” causing concerns about “the safety and discretion of the splice intended as resident.” Which, really, half of Jupiter’s protection detail were splices and _already stationed on Earth_ , so why was the big deal about hiring an admin assistant to live there?

Jupiter never did get a straight answer about why there was such a delay; she half suspected Titus of pulling a fast one just to screw with her from his plush prison cell across the next galaxy over.

All she knew, all she _needed_ to know, was that Captain Tsing showed up and requested Caine’s presence for a few days, and when they got back, Melody was with them, intergalactic immigration papers in hand.

_Filing Intergalactic Taxes_

There were benefits to getting paid under the table for her uncle’s cleaning business, one of which was never having to file taxes. It was a benefit Jupiter hadn’t truly appreciated until now, sitting at the long table on Ourus in the tax division for over six Earth hours. The table was covered with paperwork, each section requiring her physical signature instead of just a wave of her fancy glow-tattoo, and all needing to be completed in duplicate, and occasionally triplicate.

“Just kill me now…” she whined, leaning into Caine’s shoulder where he sat on her right. He patted her softly on the neck, but didn’t say a word. Jupiter didn’t blame him. There wasn’t much point; it was the nth time she’d said it so far, and it wasn’t like he could make any of the paperwork go away for her.

Not for the first time, Jupiter wished she’d brought Melody along on this trip. Jupiter hadn’t thought she’d need her assistant for supposedly basic tax forms, and really after the hassle of getting Melody settled on Earth, she didn’t want to risk having the splice uprooted by accident. And this way Melody was able to keep a discrete eye on the Keepers in charge of protecting Jupiter’s family while she was away. No, leaving her behind was definitely the right decision, but damned if Jupiter could do with some music right about now.

Over on Jupiter’s other side, the programmed-to-be-terrifyingly-peppy-in-the-face-of-taxes Accountress Mal shuffled another stack of forms together and presented them over to her Entitled client with a beaming smile. “Now with this section, we’re almost halfway through! Isn’t that exciting?”

“Seriously, kill me, please? Pretty please?” Jupiter muttered again.

This time Advocate Bob, from where he was seated just past Caine and scanning each document into his memory banks, overheard. “I wouldn’t if I were you; the Request for Assisted Suicide Form 29.RAS is one of the more complicated to complete.”

Caine thoughtfully put his hand between Jupiter’s head and the table as she slumped forward with another groan.

**…And the One Time Things Ran Surprisingly Smoothly.**

 

_The Justice of the Peace_

It wasn’t a difficult decision, choosing not to have a grand church wedding, the likes of which other girls supposedly dreamed of. To say Jupiter wasn’t like other girls was the understatement of the millennium; really, this was low on the list of ways she’d broken the mold her genes had been poured into a second time.

Her last wedding had nearly ended in disaster, and really, with her intergalactic court gowns to compare with, an Earth-designed wedding dress just didn’t seem that impressive. With the help and advice of her assistant, Jupiter settled on a simple sheath, but instead of the traditional white, it was a soft peach that made her skin glow. Her mother’s mouth had twisted a little at the choice, but it wasn’t as if Jupiter’s non-virgin status was a surprise. Aleksa’d met Caine by then, and honestly in the face of his physical virility, was more surprised Jupiter wasn’t _pregnant_. Her virginity wasn’t nearly as much of an issue by comparison.

Caine hadn’t cared what he wore, not that Jupiter expected anything else. Her lover, her _consort_ , as Bob insisted on reminding her as if she could forget, would only ever be comfortable in utilitarian garb, easy to throw on in an emergency and tough enough to stand up to a fight. Jupiter had almost despaired of convincing him to wear a suit when Stinger and Kiza showed up unexpectedly one afternoon and dragged the un-protesting lycantant away with them. Jupiter had relaxed then; even if the other Skyjacker was nearly as austere in his clothing choices as Caine was, Kiza, at least, enjoyed a well-dressed man as much as Jupiter did. She’d make sure the men didn’t skimp on the details.

Sure enough, when they all convened on the courthouse steps, Caine looked every bit as handsome as she’d hoped, the only sign of his non-human status in the long dress coat he wore to hide the wings. He smiled at her, eyes drinking her in with that same awe that his expression always seemed to hold when he looked at her. He took her hand and led her inside.

While an alien nightingale sang softly in the background, and with her family, Stinger, and Kiza in attendance as witnesses, and an armada in orbit under the command of Commander Tsing making sure no one interrupted, Jupiter Jones married Caine Wise.

Her wedding certificate even had their real legal names.


End file.
